Using TLB to Teach Foreign Relations Law

This post discusses Foreign Relations Law as part of our series explaining how professors can use resources on TLB to teach various classes. Previous posts have discussed Transnational Litigation, Civil Procedure, International Business Transactions, and Conflict of Laws.

Although TLB focuses on litigation, and Foreign Relations Law classes cover many topics that are rarely litigated, there is significant overlap.  The two main foreign relations casebooks (Murphy, Swaine & Brunk and Bradley, Deeks & Goldsmith) both cover a number of topics addressed by TLB including immunities, human rights litigation, the act of state doctrine, extraterritoriality, international comity, and the importance of states and state courts.

For all of these, TLB has posts that can help instructors reinforce basic doctrine, as well as other posts that highlight recent developments such as pending legislation, lower court cases with interesting fact patterns, recent Supreme Court decisions, recent scholarship (for example on the political question doctrine), and so on.

Recent posts focus, for example, on current human rights litigation litigation, helping students and instructors answer questions about what kinds of human rights cases can move forward following the Supreme Court’s decisions curtailing the Alien Tort Statute.

Finally, although neither casebook focuses directly on sanctions, instructors can use TLB to add some readings on this important topic, especially as it relates to Russia and Afghanistan. The sanctions readings allow for a discussion of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the recognition power, immunities, and interesting current policy issues.

Human Rights Litigation

• A Primer on Human Rights Litigation
• Has the Alien Tort Statute Made a Difference?
• Boston Jury Awards $15.5 Million in a Transnational Human Rights Case
• The ATS Clarification Act Can Protect Human Rights and Level the Playing Field for U.S. Businesses
• Ninth Circuit Allows Human Rights Claims Against Cisco to Proceed

Extraterritoriality

• A Primer on Extraterritoriality
• Two New Supreme Court Decisions on the Presumption Against Extraterritoriality
• What is a “Domestic Application” of the Lanham Act? The Supreme Court Creates More Questions than It Answers
• New Bill Would Amend the Alien Tort Statute to Apply Extraterritorially

Sanctions & Terrorism

• District Court Refuses to Let 9/11 Plaintiffs Have Afghan Central Bank Assets
• More Evidence that Helm-Burton is Backfiring
• Russia Should Not be Designated a State Sponsor of Terrorism
• Afghan Central Bank Assets Should Be Immune in Cases against the Taliban
• S.D.N.Y. Holds Consent-Based Personal Jurisdiction over the PLO Unconstitutional

Immunities

• A Primer on Foreign Sovereign Immunity
• A Primer on Foreign Official Immunity
• Can Corporations Claim Foreign Official Immunity?
• Open Questions After Halkbank
• English Court Finds No Sovereign Immunity in Spyware Case
• U.S. Immunity of International Organisations

The Act of State Doctrine

• A Primer on the Act of State Doctrine
• Second Circuit Rejects Act of State Doctrine in Antitrust Case
• Foreign Dictators in U.S. Courts

International Comity

• A Primer on International Comity
• Rejecting Comity-Based Abstention in Human Rights Cases
• Throwback Thursday: Joseph Story and the Comity of Nations

State Law and State Courts

• Climate Change Decision Points to the World’s Courts
• When Should Federal Common Law Govern Transnational Litigation?